'You were never a Presiding Officer' - Confusion as INEC disowns staff who testified against it

Counsel to INEC, Remi Olatubora has disowned an ad-hoc staff of the commission who testified that thugs disrupted voting in his polling unit in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State.

The staff who was identified as Desmond and served at Polling Unit 0012, Ward 6, Makun Sagam said during the cross-examination that thugs attacked his polling unit and set electoral materials on fire.

Desmond explained that his INEC reflective jacket was also burnt.

“I was able to escape with the BVAS machine only. We were trained to let go of materials if attacked,” he said.

According to the INEC ad-hoc staff, about 50 persons had voted before the hoodlums stormed the polling station with weapons and eventually burnt all voting materials.

Reacting to his revelation, counsel to INEC, Mr Olatubora disowned Desmond, saying he was never an INEC Presiding Officer.

According to the counsel, Desmond was supposed to contact INEC before appearing at the tribunal, even though the subpoena was addressed to him.

Olatubora described him as the first to testify against his client, saying: “You were never a Presiding Officer, you are an arranged witness, a procured witness, a suborn witness. You were paid to testify for PDP.”

Desmond, however, insisted that he was a Presiding Officer, tendering evidence of the money paid to him by the electoral umpire and denying having been paid by the PDP to be a witness at the tribunal, Daily Post reports.

Meanwhile, Mogbeyi, another staff of the commission during her cross-examination told the tribunal that her polling unit was attacked by unknown political thugs, who disrupted voting.

She said she did not report the incident to the police because security agents also witnessed the invasion.

She denied being paid by PDP to testify, saying: “I honored the subpoena because I didn’t want to go to jail. It was addressed to me personally, not INEC.”